you slowly realize you're a bad daddy when...

you try to introduce your son to mrs. renfro's habanero salsa.

twice.

open questions

why am i finding it so difficult to finish what i start?*

am i really a "lovable tyrant?"

how did an introvert like me end up becoming a professional networker?

why are southerners so damn secretive?

is there a reason i cannot get images of the diseased trees of north central oklahoma out of my head?


* books that are currently open, and unfinished, upon my desk include: the fellowship of the ring; intuitive leadership; johnny cash and the great american contradiction; the book of bebb; and God at sinai.

read and recommended

over at revolution in jesusland there is an excellent post that provides a non-religious introduction to shane claiborne and his influence on emerging evangelicalism. if you aren't reading revolution in jesusland and you're interested in the ongoing developments in this evolutionary experiment we call evangelicalism, you should be ashamed of yourself.

unless you've never heard of the site. then, of course, you are forgiven.

foolish wisdom

yesterday i became convinced that God has called me to focus wholly on the horizontal aspects of life and surrender the vertical aspects to Life itself. but today i was ambushed by another's insecurities and accused of building a kingdom with another's coin.

i realize that i was made for liminal space and i want to focus my life on reaching out to others instead of reaching up for the next next rung in the godforsaken ladder. but at the same time i refuse to shape my life around the insecurities of others. i have not surrendered my kingdom only to be rent asunder by someone else's petty fiefdom.

i suppose all of this is an elaborate way of saying that i am really, really pissed off right now and tempted to war up instead of responding in charity. yet, in this moment, i am mindful of nalia's reminder that it is by kindness that we can overcome the world.